Hatred and Disgust

I'm willing to bet very few people have actually heard this band's music, and that is a true shame. Of course, this was yet another band ripped off and thrown into the gutter by the bastards at Roadrunner Records, the label that picked up so many fine death metal acts in the early 90s, then dropped them like so much dross when they realized the label could ride the mallcore wave to notariety. Of course, Sorrow broke up long before then, but the fact that Roadrunner owned the rights to their (and many other bands') releases of course meant that they would never see a reprinting. Certain bands, like Pestilence, have of course been resurrected thanks to the efforts of others who realized their importance to metal and recognized that these albums did not deserve to be buried and forgotten. I hear that even Roadrunner has started doing some rereleases of their back catalogue, which, although too little too late, is at least a step in the right direction. To my knowledge though, sorrow has received no such treatment as yet. The band released an EP a year earlier that was pretty much midpaced to slow thrashy death metal, but to me this is where they got really interesting.

"Hatred and Disgust" is rather like a doomified Slayer. It's almost as if the guys listened to "reign in Blood", said "well, that's really good, but these riffs would absolutely crush if they were downtuned a little and played at a tenth their speed", and promptly went to the studio to record such an album. Of course, Sorrow definitely have their own riffs here, and they are truly pulverizing. This is definitely real doom...no silly gothic overtones, no subtle atmospherics, just behemoth riff after riff played at a plod. Most of these songs do have faster sections, usually given over to extended squealy soloing, again very much calling Slayer to mind. Vocals are a deep, but rather intelligible growl...sort of understated but simultaneously brutal and perfect for the music. There's very little trebble in this mix, and it's got a sort of muffled sound, which i actually like for some reason, even though perhaps it makes things sound a little less heavy than they should. There's definitely some original touches here, such as the guitarists' use of eerie broken chording to introduce songs or to bridge the slower and faster sections. It's nothing intricate or complicated, nor is the rest of this music. It's simple, pounding and to the point, yet i suppose those who crave speed and a myriad of riffs with their metal might become bored with this. The absolute best tracks here are I think "Human Error" and "Unjustified Reluctance". The juggernaut riffs in these two are just massive and left me floored, broken and bleeding.

Again, I have to stress that not everyone will appreciate this. If you enjoy oldschool death metal, you may or may not like this. If the idea of a band like, say, Winter, but much more riff based, appeals to you, track this down, or download it if you have to.